As part of its Pay for Success work, AIR developed a workaround to common data obstacles these projects face. AIR was contracted to develop the evaluation design for the San Diego-based Project (re)Launch, which sought to improve employment and health outcomes for veterans with service-connected disabilities by providing intensive case management and wraparound supports.

To establish an education-to-workforce pipeline, state leaders need to align labor market efforts with the education pipeline to ensure a seamless system of academic, technical, and employability skills preparedness. This updated brief aims to identify opportunities to connect, align, and leverage state policies, programs, and funding across federal laws that govern the pipeline.

Career and technical education (CTE) continues to gain traction with state and national policymakers, researchers, and educators across the country—evidenced by the creation of a federally funded center investigating CTE programs: the Career and Technical Education Research Network. AIR is leading this research network partnership under the direction of principal researcher Katherine Hughes, Ph.D. Hughes answered a few questions about CTE, the research network, and her background.

Virginia Hamilton is the organizational lead for design thinking and innovation and has extensive policy experience in a variety of workforce topics, including job training, unemployment, and economic development. Her previous experience includes a regional administrator position at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

Educators have an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how their technology initiatives reach all learners, including those with disabilities and those with limited English proficiency. How should they approach this opportunity? What is most important to consider? This edition of The 10 Series answers those questions and more.

This brief highlights findings from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in an effort to obtain a clear understanding of the ability of adults to undertake digital problem solving. This brief uses data gathered from a sample of 5,000 adults across different socio-demographic groups in the United States and compares it to international averages from 19 other countries to answer three specific study questions.

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies is a multi-domain adult skills assessment designed to understand how individuals’ education, workplace experiences, and other background factors relate to cognitive skills in the domains of literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments. This brief highlights differences between several countries in the average literacy and numeracy scores for adults at different levels of education attainment and compares gaps in literacy and numeracy scores.

The Knowledge Translation for Employment Research Center (KTER) is funded to test, in vocational rehabilitation agency settings, a knowledge broker model in which individuals are positioned to bridge the worlds of research and practice. These briefs summarize focus group findings from vocational rehabilitation staff and young adults with disabilities, focusing on transition-aged youth and adults with autism spectrum disorder.

Participants in adult education come from diverse educational and linguistic backgrounds and have a wide range of goals and needs. Despite the important role that adult education can play in students’ outcomes, little is known about the approximately 55,000 teachers providing the instruction that students depend on to achieve their goals. This brief is the first of a series of briefs that explore data on adult education teachers from three states in program year 2010–11.

States, districts, and teachers identify a need for professional learning that enables Career and Technical Education teachers to help their students meet new standards, and to respond more effectively to shifts in policy and requirements. This brief outlines the most-needed training topics, the challenges to meeting these needs, and the learning opportunities that work best.